Fatea Awards 2015

Fatea is proud to announce the winners of the Fatea Awards. The awards are nominated by the Fatea team and recognise excellence over 2015.

The winners of the Fatea Awards were announced during a two hour radio special, this year hosted by Blues & Roots Radio on January 8th at 8PM(GMT).

Each award has a shortlist of three and we congratulate all artists on our shortlist as well as the many others that were nominated and every singer-songwriter and band that released music or performed live during 2015.

No artist is allowed to win more than one award and all have featured in the magazine during the last year.

We also have three special awards. The Tradition Award is presented to the act or organisation that have traditional folk at their root and use it to inspire new songs, tunes and arrangements in the traditional spirit. The Innovation Award is presented for a context or concept that widens the appeal of roots based music or brings a different thought process to it. The Lifetime Achievement Award speaks for its self and is announced on the night

The runner ups are in no order

Album Of The Year 2015

I Dreamt I Was A Bird - Lucy Ward

Watershed - Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin

Wildfire - Keston Cobblers' Club

Single/EP/Mini Album Of The Year 2015

The Bournemouth EP - Jess Morgan

The White Witch - Heg And The Wolf Chorus

Watch The Water EP - Oh Sister

Track/Song Of The Year 2015

The Ballad Of Ronnie Radford - Harry Harris

May Day 1916 - The Celia Bryce Band

O My Blue Eyed One - Paula Ryan

Debut Album Of The Year 2015

From Here - Stick In The Wheel

East Of Alexandria - Kadia

Behind The Lace - The Changing Room

Instrumental Album Of The Year 2015

Moore, Moss, Rutter II - Moore, Moss, Rutter

Curlicue - Freya Rae & Louis Bingham

Blackhouse - Peatbog Faeries

Female Vocalist Of The Year 2015

Jackie Oates

Bella Hardy

Kate Gerrard(The Delta Bell)

Male Vocalist Of The Year 2015

Steve Tilston

Jinder

Luke Jackson

Band/Duo Of The Year 2015

Merry Hell

Bellowhead

Rura

Instrumentalist Of The Year 2015

Peter Knight

Anna Massie

Sean Taylor

Innovation 2015

The Convent

Various Artists - Land Of Hope & Fury

Brian McNeill & Friends - The Falkirk Music Pot

Tradition 2015

Esteesee - Ange Hardy

English Folk Dance & Song Society

Feis Rois

Lifetime Achievement Award

Maddy Prior

Thank You

2015 continued the trend of each year being the busiest we ever had at Fatea. More releases than ever came through the office or went directly to members of the team than ever before. Fortunately Fatea has become more like an open source magazine and the team continues to expand to ensure that we can cover as many of those recordings as possible.

It's not just directly through the magazine that we are able to help, a number of the Fatea writers also have radio shows on both terrestrial and internet radio including Acoustic Routes, Along The Tracks and The Jacket's Americana Jukebox, all of which can be heard on Blues And Roots Radio, as well as other stations and ultimately Mixcloud.

Our relationship with Blues And Roots Radio gives an opportunity for the featured artists to be heard in many other parts of the world, including their hubs in Canada & Australia as well as in the US and with the access the internet provides listeners are able to become buyers of that music. Did you know that listeners to internet radio buy substantially more albums and songs than listeners to streaming services?

The impact of reach can be shown in The Fatea Showcase Sessions, our virtual cover disk as they continue to go from strength to strength, with this year showing a comparatively large increase in Australia and New Zealand as well as good growth in Canada, not forgetting more downloads in the UK. A big thanks to Jo Elkington who provided the artwork for the sleeves for the current series, the eighth series. Work on series 9 is already well under way with the next Fatea Showcase Session Spring 2016 out on February 1st.

2016 will be a big year here at Fatea, we will be attending the first festival, Love Folk at the Atkinson Southport on the 12th and 13th of February at which we are the official media partners. We will continue to bring as much coverage of the live scene as we can.

2016 will also see a refresh of the website, which will not only give as a fresher look, but also one that allows us to be more easily accessed on mobiles and tablets and further extend our reach to help get the vast array of talented artists out there heard, bought and watched, which is ultimately what Fatea exists for.

I'd personally like to thank all of the team at Fatea. Without their contributions we would not have been able to feature anything like the number of artists we have. It means that we are constantly able to feature new and rising artists as well as reintroduce older and more familiar one and help ensure the music scene stays fresh and vibrant even in these difficult times.

Finally a big thanks to the artists who trust us with their music and you the readers, who take the time to discover independent magazines and give the artists featured your time and consideration.

In the meantime here's to a great twelve months past and to those still to come. If you would like to be involved in the Fatea story as a writer, reviewer, or photographer please get in touch.

Fatea Showcase Sessions

The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.Click Here to get the latest session